TORONTO • The federal government is considering additions to the Anti-Terrorism Act that would outlaw glorifying terrorism and attending a terrorist training camp, the National Post has learned.

While the changes are still under discussion, several sources said both items were on the table in an attempt to fill gaps in the anti-terrorism law that was passed almost a decade ago in response to the 9/11 attacks.

The amendments would bring Canada in line with a British law passed in 2006 that criminalized giving or receiving training in terrorist techniques and glorifying terrorism with the intent to incite violence.

It would also put Canada in compliance with a 2005 United Nations Security Council resolution that called on countries to “prohibit by law incitement to commit terrorist acts” and to “prevent such conduct.”

But the attempt to outlaw incitement could be controversial, pitting the freedom of expression guaranteed by the Charter of Rights against the threat posed by fanatics who encourage their followers to commit terrorist violence.

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Proving participation in terror training could also be onerous, requiring police to gather evidence of terrorist activities that often occurs in such lawless countries as Pakistan and Somalia, currently the main destinations for young extremists.

Asked why those two specific proposed changes were considered necessary, Julie Di Mambro, press secretary to Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, responded: “Our government received a strong mandate from Canadians to continue making our streets and communities safer.”

“The proposed amendments to the Anti-terrorism Act will help us fulfill that commitment. While our government’s actions have averted terrorist attacks, the threat of terrorism is still very real. We need to provide law enforcement and national security agencies with the means to anticipate and respond effectively to terrorism.”

She later said it would be inappropriate to comment on specific amendments until the bill had been tabled in Parliament. The Ministry of Public Safety declined to comment and referred questions to the Ministry of Justice.

Professor Kent Roach of University of Toronto, said outlawing terrorist training would be a “minor and justified tweak” to the law. But he said glorification was controversial when it was banned in the United Kingdom.

“The proposal will raise alarms in Muslim and civil liberties communities and any new offence, if used, would have to be narrowly tailored to be upheld under the Charter,” said Prof. Roach, an expert in terrorism law.

The measures are being debated as the government struggles to figure out how to respond to the problem of radicalization — Canadians who for various reasons have bought into the al-Qaeda ideology.

To advance their cause, some have travelled overseas to camps, particularly in Somalia and the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region. The training amendment would presumably allow police to arrest them upon their return to Canada.

But other extremists such as the Toronto 18 have instead stayed home to target Canadians. Outlawing glorification would presumably help curb such attacks by silencing those who preach violence.

Canada argued at the UN in 2006 that it already had the legal tools to tackle terrorist incitement, specifically the federal hate-crimes law. But five years later, terrorist propaganda remains pervasive on the Internet and radicalization is still considered a top security threat.

Since 2006, Canadian police have charged two prolific online jihadists. Said Namouh of Quebec was a member of the Global Islamic Media Front, an al-Qaeda mouthpiece that uses the Internet to promote terrorist attacks against the West. He was sentenced to life for conspiracy, extortion, facilitating terrorism and participating in a terrorist group.

Salman Hossain of Toronto had used the Internet to call for terrorism against Canadians. He was charged with inciting genocide and hate speech, but he fled the country before police completed an investigation and has not been arrested.

In a speech last week, Andy Ellis of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, said cases like the Toronto 18 show that radicalized individuals with a “distorted version of Islam” are willing to conduct attacks inside Canada.

“Frankly speaking, security agencies do not yet fully understand why and how a seemingly ordinary young man or woman can grow up in Canada yet come to reject the Western, liberal and democratic values that underpin Canadian identity — instead replacing them with the violent, anti-Western ideology of al-Qaeda,” said Mr. Ellis, the CSIS assistant director of policy and strategic partnerships.

“What we do know is that terrorist ideologues who are the vectors of radicalization seek to promote an ‘us versus them’ storyline. This simple message is attractive to many people, especially young people, who are looking for an identity and for a feeling of belonging, and who want to make sense of the world.”

Speaking at the Canadian Association of Security and Intelligence Studies conference in Ottawa, he said to tackle radicalization CSIS would have to work with other government agencies, police and at-risk communities. “We need to expand our efforts into longer-term, preventive programming that will foster individual and community resilience to extremist discourses.”

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